Chilean dissident trio found shot dead

Press, 11 September 1986, Page 8

Chilean dissident trio found shot dead

NZPA-AP Santiago Three men, including the editor of a Left-wing magazine banned under the new state of siege decree in Chile, were taken from their homes by armed men and then killed, their relatives said yesterday. The police said they had no knowledge about the killings. But the Government announced that 16 dissidents were picked up in the military crackdown ordered after the attempted assassination of

the President, General Augusto Pinochet, on Monday.

One of the dead men was Jose Carrasco, aged 41, a former political exile who worked for the news magazine "Analisis.” His relatives said he had been taken from his house on Tuesday by gunmen claiming to be police. His body was later found outside a suburban Santiago cemetery. He had been shot in the head. The other victims were identified by relatives as Gaston Vidarrauzaga, a

30-year-old schoolteacher, and Felipe Rivera, aged 40, a Governmentemployed electrician. Relatives said the two had been taken from their homes on Tuesday also and that the bodies had been dumped in Santiago. The Interior Ministry confirmed Carrasco’s gdeath only, and said it had not ordered his arrest. General Pinochet, the Army commander who has been in power since a coup on September 11, 1973, suffered a slight in-

jury to his left hand in the guerrilla ambush but five of his bodyguards were killed. The Government declared a state of siege shortly after the grenade and sub-machine-gun attack on his motorcade as it drove along a canyon road, the President returning to Santiago from his country residence. General Pinochet, who is 70, attended the requiem Mass for the dead bodyguards yesterday before going to a rally in his honour.

He did not speak at the rally, but was interviewed there by State television. He said he would ask the military junta, which he heads, to call a plebiscite to seek voter approval of some laws to attack terrorism definitively. He did not elaborate. The rally had been scheduled before the attempted assassination, and was intended to show support for General Pinochet, who has said that he would seek another eight years in office when his term expires, in 1989.

General Pinochet, wearing a white Army uniform, stood on an open platform with members of his military Government for more than three hours and waved both hands to the passing marchers. The bandage had been removed from his left hand. The police announced the release of two American Catholic missionary priests who were arrested on Tuesday during raids on Leftist neighbourhoods of Santiago slums. Three French and a Chilean priest remained jailed.